Rekhi to head UB spirits business

The Vijay Mallya-controlled UB group today announced operational integration of Shaw Wallace & Company with the group's spirits business comprising McDowell, Herbertsons and Triumph Distillers and Vintners.

Under the new arrangement, V K Rekhi will be the president of the integrated spirits business. He will be responsible for taking operational decisions and will report to the chairman, Vijay Mallya.

S D Lalla will be the joint president while A K M A Shamsuddin will be the deputy president (corporate affairs). Heads of R&D, human resource, IT, secretarial, legal and taxation departments will report to Lalla.

In a letter written to employees of Shaw Wallace and the group's spirits business, Mallya said organisational integration was required to create maximum business value to the group.

"As a prelude to the creation of United Spirits, I intend to integrate the companies in a phased manner, that will protect business interests and ensure transparency," he said.

The group has recently announced merger of its spirits business with McDowell & Company, which will later bring Shaw Wallace under its umbrella to create United Spirits. However, the merger of Shaw Wallace with McDowell may take some time due to tax issues.

The operational integration, which comes into immediate effect, envisages creation of an additional regional profit centre. The group has four regional profit centres in South, North, East and West.

The new structure proposed that an addition centre will be opened at Andhra Pradesh, following the good business in the southern markets.

Ashok Capoor, Ashin Malik, N R Rajsekhar, PAB Sargunar and D Banerjee will head regional profit centres at West, North, Andhra Pradesh, South and East, respectively. Shaw Wallace regional heads will report to respective heads of the regional profit centres.

Alok Gupta will head the marketing operations of the integrated spirits business while N Dugar will be in charge of purchase and manufacturing. P A Murali will look after finance and accounts.

"We have now completed three months of acquisition of Shaw Wallace. I am pleased with the performance of the combined business and hope to keep the momentum," Mallya said.